this, they overlooked the fact, as so many less excusably still do, that the extinction of the demand for any commodity alone can put an end to its supply; that slavery must cease, before the slave trade can be abolished. Witness the United States, and "par eminence," the District of Columbia.[1]
At this period, 1807—8, the settlement was flourishing in agriculture, commerce, education and health. The population amounted to 1871. Here the history of Granville Sharp, becomes disconnected with its subsequent progress, and we therefore take leave of it with the following anecdote.
In 1791, King Naimbana, filled with admiration for Sharp's character, sent his eldest son to England for education, committing him to Sharp's care; and the young chief was soon settled about forty miles from London, in the family of Rev. Mr. Gambier. Sharp, though thus at a distance, watched over him like a father; and young Naimbana (then twenty-nine years of age,) exhibited a
- ↑ It is well ascertained (though not legally established) that 3,000 new Africans or upwards, are imported annually through Texas, (across the Sabine) into Louisiana, &c., feloniously, according to the United States law—and it is believed, on grounds apparently valid, that 50,000 native American citizens, some of them whiter than their masters, (and this class of orthodox color is continually increasing,) are annually bought and sold like beasts, in the states south of Pennsylvania, feloniously according to God's law. Let every man judge which is the greatest felony! Of this internal slave trade, the city of Washington is the metropolis!
Should any one here observe, that Sierra Leone became eventually a warrior colony, with its forts and its guns—and that it put on this character, even before its connexion with Granville Sharp was dissolved, I admit and deplore the fact. The change was unworthy of the glorious foundation on which it rose. Such was also the eventual result in Pennsylvania, that brother settlement! But the change did not take place in Sierra Leone, till Granville Sharp ceased to preside over it; and he seems to have remained connected with it, not as approving of the change, but merely as he remained chairman of the Society for the Abolition of the African slave trade, although he abhorred the principle which induced them to confine their efforts to the branch, instead of striking, at once, at the root. He did not feel himself at liberty to depart from an object noble in itself, because abuses crept into it; and this must be the conduct of every sane mind; the only danger, in this respect, being, that of mistaking things ignoble in themselves, like the colonization pursuit of the United States, for things really and altogether noble, such as Sierra Leone was in its foundation.
